New Member

I grew up on the East Coast and one time in California, I knew I was south of San Francisco on an excursion to Alice's Restaurant... So, after eating at Alice's, I put the ocean on my right and drove - knowing that would get me back to S.F. (to my east-coast mind, I was going North..) -- I ended up in Half Moon Bay before I figured out what my mind had done...

Stephen King has done the same type of location confusion thing in The Drawing of the Three... In the Prisoner, after reaching the Western Sea, Roland decides to walk North... and not a page later starts talking about the sea to his right and the mountains to his left... (ouch!!!)

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one afflicted by such an ingrained geospatial tattoo...

These are the references that need fixing -- left to right, right to left,,,
ISBN 0-452-26214-3
Pgs: 32, 177, 291

I grew up on the East Coast and one time in California, I knew I was south of San Francisco on an excursion to Alice's Restaurant... So, after eating at Alice's, I put the ocean on my right and drove - knowing that would get me back to S.F. (to my east-coast mind, I was going North..) -- I ended up in Half Moon Bay before I figured out what my mind had done...

Stephen King has done the same type of location confusion thing in The Drawing of the Three... In the Prisoner, after reaching the Western Sea, Roland decides to walk North... and not a page later starts talking about the sea to his right and the mountains to his left... (ouch!!!)

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one afflicted by such an ingrained geospatial tattoo...

These are the references that need fixing -- left to right, right to left,,,
ISBN 0-452-26214-3
Pgs: 32, 177, 291

I read the series twice. The first time something tugged at my neurons but didn't wake me up to the east-west issue. Then I read it the second time and was like "did he really screw that up?" I actually read this part a third time, drew a map, and confirmed that , indeed, he got a bit confused. My first instinct is to not downplay the series, but to ask what the hell editors get paid to do??? Just seems impossible to miss, especially by a team of people. Hmmmm

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I read the series twice. The first time something tugged at my neurons but didn't wake me up to the east-west issue. Then I read it the second time and was like "did he really screw that up?" I actually read this part a third time, drew a map, and confirmed that , indeed, he got a bit confused. My first instinct is to not downplay the series, but to ask what the hell editors get paid to do??? Just seems impossible to miss, especially by a team of people. Hmmmm

The idiot is IN

I read the series twice. The first time something tugged at my neurons but didn't wake me up to the east-west issue. Then I read it the second time and was like "did he really screw that up?" I actually read this part a third time, drew a map, and confirmed that , indeed, he got a bit confused. My first instinct is to not downplay the series, but to ask what the hell editors get paid to do??? Just seems impossible to miss, especially by a team of people. Hmmmm

Well-Known Member

I mean it might not be, but since SK falls more on the non-outlining side of writing I assume it is. Most fantasy writers are usually heavy world builders spending hours and hours crafting. Ya know? The heirs to Tolkien and all. Not all fantasy is High fantasy of course but that detailed world building. Some folks really just have a talent for it. A lot of them outline as well I've noticed.

Stephen King never struck me as a heavy rule-based world builder. Which isn't bad at all. I'm no great rule-based world builder in the writing. His most obvious gift and skills is more in small-town building, out of the box ideas and characters.

Mid-World is a kick ass world but it is not like the most structured developed world. It is more like a crazy out of the loop kinda place and very vague in some areas. Hmmm what's a good comparison? SK fantasies are more like Alice in Wonderland, Wizard of Oz, and old Fairy Tales with his own touches obviously. Very Americana. Compared with Westeros, Brandon Sanderson novels are much more detailed in how they function as a society. Both cool, but very different.

Mid-World has some of that but it is far vague in some respects. It is a wasteland by the time the story starts, though.

So, probably just an error or not. Either way doesn't matter. Drawing of the Three is a great book! We are bound to find errors in a couples books every now and again.

The idiot is IN

I mean it might not be, but since SK falls more on the non-outlining side of writing I assume it is. Most fantasy writers are usually heavy world builders spending hours and hours crafting. Ya know? The heirs to Tolkien and all. Not all fantasy is High fantasy of course but that detailed world building. Some folks really just have a talent for it. A lot of them outline as well I've noticed.

Stephen King never struck me as a heavy rule-based world builder. Which isn't bad at all. I'm no great rule-based world builder in the writing. His most obvious gift and skills is more in small-town building, out of the box ideas and characters.

Mid-World is a kick ass world but it is not like the most structured developed world. It is more like a crazy out of the loop kinda place and very vague in some areas. Hmmm what's a good comparison? SK fantasies are more like Alice in Wonderland, Wizard of Oz, and old Fairy Tales with his own touches obviously. Very Americana. Compared with Westeros, Brandon Sanderson novels are much more detailed in how they function as a society. Both cool, but very different.

Mid-World has some of that but it is far vague in some respects. It is a wasteland by the time the story starts, though.

So, probably just an error or not. Either way doesn't matter. Drawing of the Three is a great book! We are bound to find errors in a couples books every now and again.

New Member

Without beating a dead horse, I'd bet the farm it was a mistake. With so much focus on the direction of the beam and the locations of the twelve gods around the tower, I feel that it was a slip up. With Roland traveling North along the Western Sea, he could've only seen rocks to his right, or the east. Just saying.....

Well-Known Member

Member

Hooray! It looks like I'm not the only pedantic reader. Every time I re read The Dark Tower series, this little item of direction scratches my sense of logic. I get the fantasy world scenario, and the plasticity of geography, but I have found that SK's stories are usually very logical, and even graceful in their movement from one scene to the next, but this particular glitch just doesn't work.
Didn't stop me from galloping through the rest of the series, though, and loving it.

New Member

Magic doors to other worlds and lobstrosities that say "Dad-a-chum" in a world that's moved on are no problem. But east to the left as you go north is a problem. If Stephen King is reading this, he's laughing his ass off.

Magic doors to other worlds and lobstrosities that say "Dad-a-chum" in a world that's moved on are no problem. But east to the left as you go north is a problem. If Stephen King is reading this, he's laughing his ass off.

The idiot is IN

Magic doors to other worlds and lobstrosities that say "Dad-a-chum" in a world that's moved on are no problem. But east to the left as you go north is a problem. If Stephen King is reading this, he's laughing his ass off.

Moderator

Uber Member

Magic doors to other worlds and lobstrosities that say "Dad-a-chum" in a world that's moved on are no problem. But east to the left as you go north is a problem. If Stephen King is reading this, he's laughing his ass off.

New Member

Hello. I just found this forum looking for the answer to this directional thing. I read the series quite a few months ago and recently bought my own copies recently (boxed-set paperbacks). This second reading, I tried to note the questionable passages in "The Drawing of the Three" that puzzled me the first time I read it.

I've decided that SK flipped north and south deliberately (hey, it's a fantasy world) rather than it being a mistake. Some passages I've found (I may have missed some)....

Last page of "The Gunslinger": "He began west again, his back set against the sunrise, heading toward the ocean,...." ( this and other passages seem to make east and west the same in our world and Roland's)

"Drawing of the Three" p20: "He had come from the east; he could not walk west...." (he then went "north")

p22: "He looked at the object, which now cast a narrow shadow back toward the upland,...."

p23: "At last, around three o'clock...with his shadow beginning to grow long on his left" (start of my confusion.... )

p24: "At one moment he had been looking west at an uninterrupted view of a gray, rolling wave"

p196: "If a sign of progress was wanted, it could only be obtained by looking left, to the east. There the jagged peaks..."

p323: "....there was still no door in sight when the sun began to spill its gold track across the ocean." (this was late in the day)

p327: "The tide was coming in and Eddie looked to the right --- west --- with rising unease." (Hmmm, the punctuation here seems emphatic/deliberate)

p424: "As the sun's bottom arc first touched the Western Sea in Roland's world....)

Anyway, if deliberate, the Beam going southeast would be comparable to our going northeast? (toward Roland's dystopian NYC and the Tower in Maine!??)